Two Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers at the police Headquarters namely DSP. Cletus (prosecutor) and Samuel Yaw Ansah have again released a Canadian suspect Mr. Alistair Jude Mathias who had jumped bail for nearly three years in the matter of the alleged four million dollar fraud which was under investigation.
Under some bizarre circumstances the prosecutor DSP Cletus told an Accra High court last Tuesday that he was in court to clear the two sureties Mr. Joel Nettey and Mustapha Gbande for bringing back the suspect but the substantive matter was still under investigation and that they were going to keep the suspect in police custody.
But after the Court had exonerated the two sureties, the second CID Samuel Yaw Ansah who was supposed to go and lock up the suspect as according to what the prosecutor told the court was seen outside the court dialoguing with the suspect saying; “… am travelling, I will be back over the weekend so that we can meet” and then he allowed the suspect to walk away freely again with the two sureties.
When both officers were confronted in a separated telephone conversation by the complainant’s representative who was at the court to hear the matter, the Prosecutor indicted that he did his part as captured in the court records that the police were going to keep the suspect and that he wasn’t aware of what had transpired between Mr. Ansah and the suspect outside whilst he(DPS Cletus) was still inside the court after releasing the suspect to Mr. Ansah.
Mr. Yaw Ansah on his part during a heated argument with the complainant’s representative also stated that “the man (suspect) is already on bail” … but further checks revealed that nobody had signed any bail bond for Mr. Alistair as of the time of his release and that the CID officer had clearly peddled an obvious untruth for whatever motivation or reason.
The suspect, who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of M.A Resources Limited in Accra, was arrested in June 2014 Commercial Crime Unit (CCU) of the CID but was granted bail with two sureties, while investigations continued.
The suspect was asked to keep reporting to the police but failed to do so and returned to Dubai. Later, he was said to have called the CID to explain that a civil case against him in Dubai was also pending and that he needed to go there for a week but failed to return all these years until he resurface over a week ago.
Background
According to the Ghanaian gold exporter whose name has been withheld for security reasons, he met Alistair, holder of a Canadian passport with number BA 725745, and resident in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), about five years ago.
He said the suspect came to Ghana and bought a concession in the Eastern Region to mine gold and later registered the M.A Resources Limited in Ghana and did everything possible to win his trust.
Before meeting the Canadian, the businessman had already established a branch of his business in Dubai, which was doing well. After few negotiations, it was agreed that Alistair would act as an agent, clearing and forwarding all gold shipments to the refinery in Dubai.
Receipts of proceeds from the sale of the gold are to be subsequently transferred to the businessman’s company in Ghana.
From the beginning, everything was running smoothly until December 2013 and early March 2014 when the first large shipment of gold worth $4 million was made. Alistair was to repatriate the money to Ghana but he refused to do so.
But, following checks with the refinery in Dubai the Ghanaian businessman discovered that all proceeds from the sale of the gold had been duly paid to the suspect but had failed to send them to Ghana.
When quizzed about the proceeds from the sale, which amounted to $4 million, the suspect claimed he had deposited the money in his personal accounts at the Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai, but checks at the bank showed that no such amount had been deposited in the said account.
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